‘Share Of Heart’ Advertising Best Way To Engage Hispanics

Terms like “emotional marketing” and “share of heart” advertising almost always conjure up images of tearful, romantic goodbyes or tender moments between loved ones. They’re thrown around much too often, alongside terms like “inspirational” and “aspirational,” in an attempt to describe emotional connections. But they fail to say much of anything.Emotional marketing really is—or at least it should be—message-driven, a means toward eliciting an emotional response to a key, core message. Those emotions don’t have to be touchy-feely or teardrop-inducing, the way some have thought in the past. They can be a whole lot more than that, and do a whole lot more. And when used in a savvy way, they can mean great things for your brand or business.

We all know that our basic emotions—no matter our race, age, location or economic background—are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. As humans, we have access to each of these, and often feel more than one at any given time. We’re emotional creatures and we have a range.

Advertisers and marketers frequently play into these emotions, by using what I consider more traditional emotional triggers, like nostalgia (cue some soft music playing over a clip of a new mom bonding with her bouncing, bubbly baby), or aspiration and pride, (cue a pair of parents sending their now-grown child off to college) or tenderness, (cue a romantic encounter between a pair of love birds, as rain falls slowly around them). But some emotions require a completely different approach, one which can drive connection and bond a consumer with a brand—which, it deserves mentioning, is the ultimate goal in every marketing campaign. When consumers bond with a brand, it’s a win.

Positive emotions can be an incredible means to this end. We have found that both happiness and surprise, for example, are effective tools in gaining a consumer’s attention and then linking that consumer’s state to a positive emotion, which, if done correctly, can have long-lasting effects. Keep in mind that brands crave such effects—they essentially guarantee them more bang for their buck. And although humor-based or disruptive advertising may not seem like an obvious way to connect to a consumer’s share of heart, we have found that it absolutely can be.

Take humor, for instance. We’ve successfully used humor to elicit exactly this type of powerful response for several of our clients and will continue to do so because it works well. And although it may seem to some that what works best in the Latino marketing space is emotional (by way of sappy), what we’ve found is that humor, not to mention approaches that elicit surprise or even anger, can be just as powerful toward connecting with consumers—just as is the case with the general market.

The difference is that Latino consumers have a different sense of humor than the general market, which essentially means that their definition of funny is something else entirely. It also means that a clip or idea that has a huge impact on a Caucasian audience may fall completely flat with Latinos, and vice versa. Compare a typical American English language sitcom and some Spanish language programming, and we promise you’ll see the difference—even if you can’t understand it.

What this all boils down to is this: Savvy marketers and advertisers appreciate our range of powerful emotions, and play into the full set with every audience—general market, Latino or otherwise.